


One is One

by Polly_Lynn



Series: Without Number [1]
Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 07:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1810132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That's all this is. A gesture. More for him than for her in the making of it." An episode insert for Tick, Tick, Tick (2 x 17). AUish from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_One is one and all alone_

_And evermore shall be so._

Green Grow the Rushes (Traditional)

* * *

  
  


"I'm not going to leave you alone."

His voice is steady. His hands, too. He pours the wine from her glass to his, because she won't drink it. She won't even accept that much from him.

He's angry and freaked out at the thought of letting her out of his sight, whether it's from the loft to here or down a hallway. Whether she sleeps with a gun or not, the thought of not being able to look up and see her freaks him out.

But his voice is steady, and his hands don't shake until he hears the bedroom door close firmly behind her.

_Pointedly_ behind her.

Then they shake. The wine sloshes crazily as the first glass makes its way down his throat. First and second. His and hers. He drinks them both, and his hands are shaking.

He swings to his feet and it's not just his hands. He's shaking from head to toe. Unsteady all the way down as he pours himself a little more.

Just a little, and even so, his hands shake. The wine almost climbs over the rim as he makes his way back to the couch.

He sips more slowly and tells himself that it's getting better. That his hands aren't shaking as much, and he just needs to get this glass into him and get some sleep.

It works. Kind of.

The wine disappears, and his eyes are heavy. He sets the glass aside and falls back against the pillows.

He's not shaking then. He's sinking. Solid and fast and then rolling up on a massive green-gray wave that bends his spine to breaking.

It spills him out into the precinct. It's dark and loud. Carousel music and the roar of Grand Central Station and everywhere he turns there are doors.

He's looking for her. He's in the loft now, but it's the same thing all over again. Doors and blank faces behind every single one. Voices. Questions. People he doesn't know asking him things he doesn't understand.

He steps past into a new place. Here, maybe, though he doesn't remember where that is. Her place? His mind tells him that, but it seems unlikely, and anyway, it's half imaginary at least. Made up of things he thought she'd have.

There are more doors, wherever it is. Fire sometimes. Smoke more often, and always faces. Blank and disappointed and not hers. They can't help. They don't know where she is. He's the one who should know.

Doesn't he know?

His feet echo on the floors. Footsteps sounding out and circling back to him, and he knows one thing only: She's not here. Everyone expects him to find her. All the blank faces and loud voices expect him to be the one to find her, and he doesn't know.

He doesn't _know_.

Every room is empty, and then it's water again and he's sinking. He's pulled down and hits bottom hard. The impact judders through his spine. Through every one of his bones and he _hurts_. Aching sorrow and loneliness and desolation, because she's gone.

She's _gone_.

He thrashes against it. Water and empty places. He hits out and hears the ring of glass. A chime and a soft thump.

He opens his eyes, and it's hard. It's so hard to make them work, even though he wants out. He wants out of this terrible, empty place without her.

He opens his eyes. There's a single lamp burning. Somewhere off to the side and that's different.

He left all the lights on, didn't he? Some stupid thought about vigilance. But now there's just a single lamp and she's there. Right across from him in the worn-looking armchair.

It doesn't make any sense, but all the pieces are right.

The bright purple sweep falling from her shoulders and the careless twist of hair. There's a throw stretched over her drawn-up knees. She's balancing a wine glass on the arm of the chair, and her toes peek out over the edge of the cushion. Chipped green polish with a metallic glint.

"Kate."

She doesn't say anything. Somehow, more than anything, that convinces him he's awake. That this doesn't make any sense, but she's sitting in the chair across from him.

Her silence convinces him, and there are details even his mind couldn't have made up. The sadness on her face. Worry and a shadow that she banishes. That doesn't even last a breath once he says her name. Chipped green polish with a metallic glint.

Even _his_ mind couldn't have made that up.

She's there. The bottle is on the floor beside her and the dark red line is lower than he left it. Quite a bit lower. She's been there a while, but she doesn't say anything.

He struggles up to sit. His feet are clumsy and heavy as they thump to the floor. He sees the wine glass where it fell. Where it rolled to a stop against the leg of the coffee table. He's absently thankful for the carpet. Grateful that it didn't break.

_Kate_.

_Beckett_.

He's about to say it again, but she speaks then. Soft words that cut through the room anyway. Flat and bleak.

"Why are you here, Castle?"

He doesn't know how to answer. He has already. Before, but they both know it's ridiculous.

_I'm here to protect you_.

There's nothing he can do to protect her. There's nothing he can say.

"I couldn't stay away."

Except that. There's that. It's close enough to true that he hopes she'll leave it.

But she won't. She doesn't.

"It's not your fault," she says.

Her lips press together in a thin, hard line and she jerks her head toward the kitchen. Toward the right angles of glass meeting glass, and he idly wonders if that's where the security detail was. If that's where they'd still be if she hadn't sent them away.

"Castle . . ."

"I know it's not it's not my fault." He stares down at his feet. At the hole just starting in the toe of one sock. At the unbroken wineglass tipped on its side. "It's not and it is."

"Castle, I told you. This guy . . . a guy like him . . . he'd . . ."

It's reasonable. Curt and matter of fact like she's the one who's here for him. Like he's the one who needs something, and this is what she has to give.

And maybe that's the truth. But the dream still hangs on him. The weight of a world without her in it.

"I know," he snaps. "He'd find another reason."

He reaches down to snag the wine glass. His. Or hers, maybe. The one that was supposed to be hers. The one she held briefly and pushed back into his hands. Because she won't accept even that.

He drags himself up. He paces through the wide space between the glass doors to the kitchen table. He was going for the bottle, but it's not there, of course.

It's by her side and he wonders what she'd do if he came close and snatched it up. If he downed what's left straight from the bottle. If he offered to share. To open another and another and another and hunker down until someone else makes this all go away. Jordan Shaw or the Tooth Fairy or who the fuck ever.

He wonders, but it's not the kind of thing he can ask. It's not the kind of thing he wants her to know. That he wonders if she'd hide out with him. If they could pull the cushions off the couch and the sheets off the bed and hide out.

He wonders if she'd let him take her away, but that's not the kind of thing he can ask, either.

"He'd find another reason." He leans against the table. Slumps into his hips and spins the stem of the glass between his fingers. "But it wouldn't be you."

"That matters?" She turns in her chair. Rests her chin on the back and watches him.

"Yes." His fingers close hard around the glass. "It matters."

"Because you wouldn't know."

She says it quietly. There's no venom to it. It's a statement.

"Because I wouldn't know."

That's it. The whole of it and none of it at all. None of it whatsoever. But he doesn't know how to tell her that. He doesn't know how to explain why it matters and how.

"Because it wouldn't be you," he says again. It's all he has.

His chin drops to his chest. He sets the glass down and thinks about going. Ending the gesture here. Because that's all this is. A gesture. More for him than for her in the making of it, and he's keeping her up.

He raises his head to ask. If she wants him to go. How long he was dreaming and if he woke her.

He raises his head and she's there. Walking toward him with the bottle dangling from the fingers of one hand, her glass curled against her chest in the other.

She's going to tell him to leave. He's sure of it, and he can't. Even though he was just thinking about it. Even though he'd just made up his mind to ask—to offer—the dream hangs heavy on him and he _can't._

She stops in front of him. Regards him silently. She raises an eyebrow and crooks her elbow, offering the wine.

He fumbles the glass into his hand. Holds it out to her in mute gratitude as she upends the bottle into it. He frowns at the bare inch of liquid. At the thin coating at the bottom of her glass.

"Is there . . ." He looks at her in belated dismay. "I can go get more?"

She laughs. Tips back the last of her own and sets the glass on the table.

"You won't leave me alone if I ask, but you'll leave me alone to get wine?"

He turns in on himself. A door closing pointedly somewhere inside. This is a gesture. More for him than her.

_I can leave you alone_.

He's opening his mouth to say it, but her fingers are at his wrist. At the back of his hand where he holds the glass.

"Sorry." She dips her head and turns to the windows. Her fingers fall away. She wraps her arms around herself and scans the dark distance. "Sorry, Castle."

He nods. Finishes the swallow of wine and turns to face the windows himself.

"I can go," he says after a minute.

He's surprised at the offer. Surprised to hear himself make it.

It's not true. Not really. He can make his feet move and his hands draw back. He can slide the security chain back and keep it together until she closes the door in his face. But he can't really go. Wherever his body might be, he can't really go.

She's silent.

He turns to offer again. She's looking at him. Studying his face like she does sometimes. He looks away. Out the window and down at his hands. Away from her.

"This is more for me than you," he mutters. "I can go."

"You don't have to." The words come slowly. Her hands loosen. They come away from her ribs to trace the arc of the kitchen chair and her eyes follow. She's not looking at him anymore. "It's . . . less nerve wracking. With you here."

He nods to the glass. To the darkness.

They stand in silence. The sounds of traffic filter up, and the light changes with it. Shadows and reflection wavering along the hammered surface of the glass as the night makes its way across the sky.

He looks down at his wrist. His watch is gone. On the coffee table, maybe, or lost in her couch cushions.

He likes the idea. Files it away for later, like someday they'll be back to normal. Like someday he'll tease her about the time he spent the night. How he'd meant to ask about the fact that she has a road sign pointing to Paris and no kitchen clock.

It cheers him. The fantasy of a normal someday. The thought flares bright and he turns to her.

She's tense. Palms pressed to the table and leaning forward. Alert and peering at the glass.

He doesn't see anything. He narrows his eyes, and it's like a switch flips. Nothing to something. A constant something that he might be imagining. Shadow and light that seem too close.

"Beckett?"

"Nothing. I thought . . . " She lets out a breath. Leans over the table and takes in air again. "It's nothing."

"Were they out there?" He jerks his chin toward Paris. "The security detail."

"No," she says. "Around front. Street side. They split up. One on foot, making the rounds, and one in the car, but . . ."

"How many entrances?"

He's thinking about the fire escape. About how maintenance gets in and out, and whether there's a trash room with alley access. He knows he's missing something. This is nothing but a gesture and he's probably missing a lot of things.

"Too many." She shakes her head. "Storm cellar with a padlock. Rusted out security bars on one of the laundry room windows."

He lets his head drop back and wonders how hard it would be to get up there. On to the glass overhead.

It's beautiful. It's just sodium light from the alley. But it streams in. Breaks up and diffuses, burnishing every surface. It's beautiful. He's only just seen and he'll never see it again without wondering how easy it might make it to hurt her. To take her out of the world.

"You're not very comforting," he says miserably.

She laughs at that. Hangs her head. There's regret there, but it's not quite an apology. She won't spare him.

"It wouldn't have made a difference." She shrugs. "Not a lot does. It could be anything. Any day of the week. A car running a light. A junkie with a knife or a gun. Doesn't have to be a psycho out for me personally."

_It could be anything_.

She's so matter of fact about it and he feels like he's back in the dream. Like he's sinking. Hitting bottom hard.

Because there it really is. The whole of it. It could be anything and how has he not realize that before now? How has it taken this to bring him here?

"How does anyone do this?" He feels like he's sinking.

"It's the job." Her voice is soft now. Not matter of fact like a minute ago, and this might be something like an apology.

"Not you." He turns to her. Angry somehow. It's not what he was asking. He doesn't want an apology. He's angry. Tired of not even knowing what he means, let alone how to say it. "Not you and Ryan and Esposito."

He turns his back on the windows. Crosses his arms over his chest and lets them fall to his sides the next second. Heavy and helpless.

He's not asking about the job. Being a cop and the code. He's asking about _her_. Himself and the two of them.

Except he's not asking that. He's not asking anything because he doesn't know how.

She's watching him. Again. She's watching him like she sometimes does and the words come. They land on his tongue.

"Not you," he says again. "Everyone else. Evelyn. Your dad. Ryan's girlfriend. How does _anyone_ live like this?"

"They don't." The words come for her, too. Immediate, and he thinks she might wish they hadn't. She looks like she wishes they hadn't, but she goes on anyway. "Mostly . . . they don't."

He watches her now. He waits quietly. A smile flits over her lips at the reversal.

"It's a fantasy at first." The smile fixes. It turns grim and she aims it down at her own hands. "Lady cop."

He starts guiltily. He wants to apologize. But it's less for himself than in general. It's different for him. It's a fantasy— _she's_ a fantasy—but not like that. She dragged him right into the middle of her life. Into the middle of who she is. The work she does. It's never been like that.

He might play at it. He does. Tweaking and annoying. Defying her and sliding behind the wheel to play cop when he actually listens. When he actually stays behind.

But that's him. It's him playing and the way he sees her . . . . It's never been like that.

He waits quietly.

She nods. Not quite a smile this time.

"It's a fantasy and then they don't want to know." Her fingers run absently over her wrist. Over the glint of a jagged scar there and another on the back of her hand. "They don't want to know why you're limping or where the bruises came from today." She looks up at him. "So mostly they don't."

"That's . . ." He struggles. Gropes for the right word and it comes. "Stupid."

Her eyes go wide. Her lips part in a smile. She's surprised. She laughs.

"No," he says. He's heavy. Sinking and he can't help but feel like this is important. That he's finally said something he means and she should know. "Don't laugh. It's . . ."

He breaks off. Her head is tipped back. She's laughing up at him and he's sinking.

He leans in. He lets the weight take him. He kisses her.

It's an instant at best. A meeting and a parting almost at once. His lips and hers.

"Don't laugh, Kate." It's a whisper that barely stirs the air, but each word is heavy. He means it. He _means_ this and he needs to tell her. His arms are stiff at his sides. Angling back like he doesn't dare touch her, but he kisses her again. His lips find hers and leave again on a sigh. "Don't laugh. It's such a . . ."

He pulls back. Urgency tearing him in two directions. Telling him to kiss her again. Telling him to stop. To say this. _Finally._ Something he only understands just now. Something he feels like he's known for longer than he can say even now. Even when he finally understands.

"Kate." He kisses her. He has to. But he speaks, too. Eerie calm as he alternates lips and breath against her skin. "Don't laugh like that. It's such a stupid reason for you to be alone."

"Castle."

It's a thready breath with his name attached. Along, broken chain of sound and he's worried. He's worried that she's arguing. That she'll step back or slap him or slam the door again.

He's worried that he's made a colossal mistake, but then her fingers find his and their bodies are crowding together. Finding the places that fit in a lazy, inevitable kind of way.

She's kissing him back. The fact is a fire burning somewhere in the back of his mind. Something hot and white and insistent.

But most of him is here. In her kitchen at God knows what hour of the night. Kissing her.

His arms find their way around her waist. Her hands slide over his shoulders and into his hair.

Her mouth opens against his and a single sound escapes.

_Oh._

Something tips, then. Some unseen balance of possibility tips and carries them along. She feels it, too. She smiles into him, and the weight takes them both this time. It takes them together, and he's calm.

He's slow and deliberate with her. With his hands smoothing over her hips and his mouth gliding over her jaw and down her neck to drop her name against the hollow of her throat.

It's a question. He didn't know, but she seems to. She nods. Mouths a soundless _yes_ against his cheek, and they're moving together across the room. A dance. Him turning her. Her turning him.

He sinks on to the couch. Back into the pillows, and she follows.

She weighs nothing. _Nothing_ , and the warmth of her—the soft heat of her skin under his hands—is the only thing that makes him believe she's really there.

He peels the drape of her long shirt upward. Tugs the knot of fabric between her breasts with his free hand and bunches it all together. A bright purple splash on a pale silvery background.

Her mouth parts from his. She ducks her head through the collar and it only takes that instant for him to miss her.

He sits up. Chases as she takes her clothes from his hands and drops them to the floor.

He chases and she returns the favor. Her fingers find the hem of his sweater. They pull impatiently at the shirt beneath when it catches on his belt and then it's all up and over his head, the lot of it.

He falls and she falls with him. Skin to skin and everything is suddenly real. Bright and bursting behind his eyelids. Heavy and scalding and present.

He turns. Levers her body beside his with hip and thigh and shoulder.

They're nose to nose. His body and hers in the sudden shelter of her couch at God knows what hour of the night.

She reaches for him. Lifts her chin and presses up to find his mouth, but his hand comes to her shoulder.

He holds her off. His eyes sweep over her. Drink her in like it might be the last time. The last moment.

"Kate."

Her eyes flutter open. It hits him. Everything there. Want and giving. The cop and the woman he knows and more. Possibility.

It hits him. Spine and ribcage and every part of his body. It hits him how much he wants her. How much he wants from her and with her and for her.

"Kate," he says again and wishes he could shut up. That he could ask forgiveness later if it comes to that. He wishes he could shut up. "Kate. This isn't . . . for me . . . this isn't just tonight. I don't . . ."

She rises up against him. Brushes his hand aside. Catches it and guides it to her waist and kisses him.

He's expecting it. He's not expecting it.

It's soft. It's patient and takes its time. Just like the kiss before and the kiss before that. It's the same. t's not the sharp, furious, insistent thing he just now realizes he expected.

_That's_ what he's expected all along. That they'd fall together in flames. A hard, blazing challenge with blank space after it.

It's none of that. Nothing like that.

It's soft and patient and takes its time.

"Please," she says and kisses him again. "Please, Castle. Not . . . not now."

He kisses her back. _One last time,_ he thinks. He's sinking alone, but he kisses her one last time. He lingers. He pulls away. _Not now_.

He's sinking alone, and she tugs him back. Her hands come to his face and she waits. His eyes open and she's still waiting. Asking and not going anywhere.

"Not . . . not _never."_ She pulls her lip between her teeth. Takes a shaky breath. "Just . . . not now? Not _right_ now."

He threads his fingers into her hair. He looks up at her. Searches her face and she waits. She doesn't look away.

"Not never?"

"Not never," she promises and her mouth meets his again.

She kisses him.

It's soft. It's patient and takes its time.

  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That's all this is. A gesture. More for him than for her in the making of it." An episode insert for Tick, Tick, Tick (2 x 17). AUish from there.

  
_One is one and all alone_

_And evermore shall be so._

  


\- Green Grow the Rushes (Traditional)

* * *

She's shivering.

It doesn't exactly wake him. He wasn't exactly asleep. But she's shivering, and it drags his eyes open.

He looks around as best he can with his arms full of her. _Full of her._ That stops him. He closes his eyes again and drops his cheek against hers.

She's asleep. She's tangled up with him and her breath gathers like a steady promise behind his collarbone. She's asleep for now, but she's shivering.

The couch is barely long enough for her. It's nowhere near long enough for him and the throw he somehow managed to snag without rolling off on to the floor isn't doing either of them much good.

She's shivering. Her shoulder is wedged into the corner of the couch at an awkward angle and the twist of her hips against his is a miracle. An absolute miracle, but it can't be comfortable.

She's shivering and he should wake her. She should go to bed, but he's shy. He's nervous, even though she's here. Even though she promised.

_Not never_.

He's nervous and this is perfect. His arms are full of her. She's asleep and it would be just perfect if only she weren't shivering.

But she is. She's shivering and it draws her brows together. It makes her frown and press her nose into his neck. It spreads her fingers wide over his hip. Shocking points of cold and he can't quite stifle a gasp.

She whimpers. Struggles against him and it helps, somehow. It's familiar and his hands know what to do. He catches the sound. A brief kiss on her lips. Another just below her ear that goes with her name. _Kate_.

He gentles her up and out of sleep. His fingers follow the shiver. They smooth away the pinpricks that rise on her skin, and he feels her lashes flutter against his temple.

"Kate." He brushes her name along her jaw. "Kate, you should go to bed."

"Castle." His name is soft and sloppy in her mouth. A whole phrase, and it's definite. Not a question, even though she's not really awake.

She knows it's him. It's them. He lets out a breath.

"Kate."

He stops himself. Brushes her hair from her forehead and looks away. Up at the ceiling and over her shoulder to the muted pattern of the couch. He swallows down a rush of endearments. He bites them back. _Sweetheart. Love. Honey._ It burns through him. A hungry question. What will he call her? What _can_ he call her without her killing him?

"Kate, can you wake up?" He presses his lips to her forehead. Grins against the lines as they smooth away under his mouth.

She'll call him Castle. That won't change, and that burns through him, too. Rick every once in a while, but he likes that less. Rick is for when she's angry.

"Castle, what?" Her eyes are open now. Lustrous with sleep. She's shivering and still half out of it.

"Beckett." He kisses her. It tastes like an endearment, and maybe he'll never call her anything else at all. "You're cold. You should got to bed."

"Bed," she repeats and then she's all knees and elbows. She plants the heel of her hand hard against his ribs. She presses the breath out of him. Clambers over him. She lays him out flat, half off the couch and half on it. He plants his palm on the floor to keep even that much. She lands on her feet and blinks down at him.

She's naked.

Of course, she's naked. That's why she's cold. And it's not like he's forgotten how she got that way. It's not like he'll ever forget laying her bare with his hands.

She's naked and the light blazes behind her. A single lamp and sodium lights from a dirty alley pouring in through glass. She's _naked_ and she just climbed over him and before that his arms were full of her. His hands roamed over her and gentled her up out of sleep. And before that. Before _that . . ._

She's naked, and it's all he can do not to fall the rest of the way off the couch. Not to fall at her feet and tell her a hundred things to start with. To stop at that and save a hundred for the next day and the next day after that. He'll wait. He'll tell her a hundred things every day until she's ready to hear the rest. But he wants to fall at her feet right now. He wants to remind her that she promised. _You promised, Kate. Not never_.

"Castle," she says. It's a little confused now. She's blinking down at him and she looks . . . confused. Mad, maybe, and it makes him nervous. "Bed."

"Yeah." His fingers brush the outside of her knee. "You should go to bed Kate."

Her mouth twists. She's definitely mad now, and his heart pounds. She's mad. It's no good at all, and he doesn't know what to do.

" _Bed_." She stamps her foot. A clumsy rise and fall that shudders through half her body.

It's funny. He recognizes that somewhere in the back of his mind. He thinks it should be hard not to laugh, but it doesn't really occur to him. She's naked. She's mad. And he doesn't know what to do.

"Bed," she says again and it's . . . kind of a whine. It shocks him. Kate Beckett whining. He almost laughs at that, but her left arm jerks out then, and he flinches back a little. "It's that way."

She turns. Trudges off down the hallway with heavy, deliberate steps.

He watches her go. Watches her until she's out of sight and waits for the door to close behind her. Firmly, pointedly behind her.

He waits. He looks down at his hands. His fists are full of the useless little throw. It's bunched up at his waist. It makes him unbearably sad. The last little warmth of her body leaves it and he's waiting for the door to close behind her.

It doesn't come. He hears footsteps instead. Coming back the way they went. Heavy, deliberate, and _mad._ He hears the fall of her body against the wall and her nails scrabbling at plaster as her head pokes around the corner.

"Castle," she snaps. "Come on."

"Oh." He blinks at her. "Oh."

He surges to his feet. Crosses the distance to the hallway—to her—and leaves the sad little throw behind.

He follows. Watches by the light spilling in through the window as she crawls into bed. As she burrows into the pillows. She goes on her belly, dragging the pile of blankets up to her ears by the fistful.

She says his name again. Annoyance muffled by weariness and the mash of her cheek against the pillow. She's almost gone. Falling into sleep, but she says his name again.

He steps into the room. _Her_ room. He closes the door behind him. Firmly. Pointedly.

He follows. Traces her footsteps to the foot of the bed and makes his way around to the empty side. He hesitates.

She promised. _Not never_. but he can't quite believe she means this. There's some part of him—some suicidal, self-defeating, middle-of-the-night-and-there's-a-psychopath-after -you-because-of-me part of him—that thinks he should wake her up. That they should talk about this. That he should tell her again this isn't just for tonight. Not for him.

There's another part of him that wonders if he ever woke up on the couch in the first place. If he imagined everything from the chipped green toenail polish to her palms pressing hard into his shoulders and her body above his. If he imagined the taste of her skin and the way her mouth parted in a wide smile beneath his.

She cracks an eye open. Just one, but the glare is enough to make him think she can read his mind. Breath rushes out of her. It lifts the bangs from her forehead a moment before they settle again.

She wriggles her shoulders. An annoyed side-to-side motion that ends with one arm rising. It ends with a fistful of blankets held high, laying the empty corner of the bed bare. "Castle. C'mon. 's cold."

He silences them both. He silences every part of himself but this one. The part of him dropping eagerly to the bed and swinging his legs under the inviting drape of sheet. Every part of him but the one here, now, and nowhere else. Every part of him but the one climbing in and coming to rest beside her.

He sweeps one palm over her shoulder blade. His lips come to rest in the tumbled mess of her hair for just an instant. He whispers goodnight and settles on to his side. He leaves his palm where it is. One point of contact, just to be sure of her. Of the breath gliding in and out of her.

She's asleep. He thinks so anyway, but she struggles up. He feels it. One moment of effort and her eyes flick open. They settle on him, clear and present.

"Night, Castle."

Her eyes close again. The effort flows out of her and she rests.

She's asleep.

  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That's all this is. A gesture. More for him than for her in the making of it." An episode insert for Tick, Tick, Tick (2 x 17). AUish from there.

_One is one and all alone_

_And evermore shall be so._

\- Green Grow the Rushes (Traditional)

* * *

She's not sorry.

When the light falls over her, persistent and warm enough on her eyelids to pry them open, it's her first thought.

It's her second when she fights it. When she flops on to her stomach and denies the morning. When the twinge in her thighs makes itself known. When her hips press this way and that to work through more than a hint of soreness and her spine curls and lets go a last delicious bit of tension, it's her second thought.

She's not even sorry when her hand roams at her side without her say so. When her arm straightens out all the way before she's aware it's happening and she knows for sure that the other side of the bed is empty. She's not even sorry then.

She's not relieved, either.

That's her third thought and it's . . . bigger. Her hand plays lightly over the pillow. It traces the dip here and rise there where his cheek pressed into the linen not so long ago. Her fingers travel downward to get lost in the careful fold of blanket and sheet he must have made when he got up. When he left.

He left, and she's still not sorry it happened.

She's . . . not quite sorry he's gone. But she's not relieved, and she wonders if that's the same thing. If it's been so long since she's done this at all—longer still since she _sorry_ wasn't her very first thought—that _not relieved_ might be the same thing as _sorry he's gone_.

Her eyes fall closed and she smells him on the sheets. She feels the phantom weight of him on that side of the mattress and the hollow that isn't there. Her fingers twitch and ache, too, like they miss the way his swallow them up. Like they miss finding purchase on the bunched muscles of his shoulders and closing around the base of his skull to pull his mouth to hers.

But the light presses in then, and she remembers. Why he was here in the first place. What brought him to her door. What brought him to her bed by way of the couch.

She needs to get up. She's sorry about that. Her whole body is. She slept hard. Eventually. _After,_ and for far too brief a time.

She needs to get up, but she's caught. Held in place by the fact that she hears his voice in her head. She sees his face behind her eyelids. It's overwhelming. Her eyes flick open, but it doesn't help.

The image of him scatters, but she hears his voice again, low and serious and reluctant. Holding her not even an inch away from him. Looking at her like he wanted so badly to go on. To not stop, but the words came anyway.

_For me . . . this isn't just tonight._

She closes her eyes. Opens them wide again and shakes her head. It doesn't help. It's another reminder. Aching muscles from thrashing on the pillow. Strain at her collarbones when she tips her chin up and remembers insistent fingers tugging at her hair.

It doesn't help. Even when her mind wanders and her body floats and sensation leaves her, she pictures him perfectly. At her door. At the table looking out into the night. Beneath and beside her. Nose to nose and whispering. Lingering and hesitant on the edge of the couch. Bright and grateful when she came back for him.

_Oh_ , he'd said and rushed toward her like she might change her mind. _Oh._

She pictures the way he looked at her. The way he's looked at her for a long while now.

This. The case. Jordan Shaw and Nikki Heat and some lunatic. Why she needs to get up. It has nothing to do with anything, really. Timing. That's all.

There's nothing new in the way he looked at her. No surprises in how quietly it happened, her body stepping close to his. The question he didn't know he was asking and the answer she heard herself give.

_Kate._

_Yes._

There's no mystery to it. She's not sorry, she's not relieved, and she doesn't wonder why.

She hears something else, then. Her own words. In her mouth, then his.

_Not never._

It rings out, and she knows. When the time is right, she'll remember this morning—this moment—and she'll know she was sorry to find him gone. That she ran a flat palm over sheets he must have smoothed. Over a crease he must have carefully made while she slept.

She'll remember wondering if he kissed her goodbye.

* * *

He's not gone.

He's in her kitchen. He's dressed. Sort of. Just _sort of,_ and every point of disarray has her fingers curling hard around the doorframe. His hair spills over his forehead and stands up in the back and she knows why. She knows exactly how that came to be.

His shirt is untucked. The one underneath. Her eyes narrow in memory. The angry tug of cotton catching on leather. Fierce release when her patience gave way. A triumphant hiss between her teeth that made him smile, then gasp when it left nothing between her and what she wanted.

He's not gone. She's relieved. Her spine collapses and her whole body leans in his direction, even though she stops in her tracks. Even though she clings to the doorframe to keep herself from stepping up behind him. From sliding her fingers under the untucked hem. From dragging her nails up and up until he gasps again.

"You're still here . . ."

He looks around at that. He must have heard her, but he waits for her to speak before he looks around, and it's complicated.

There's a flash of hurt behind his eyes. Worry, but annoyance, too. Exasperation, as if to ask where else he would be. It's fair enough. He's not gone. There was no chance he would ever just leave like that, and she's sorry it sounds like she thought he would. That maybe it sounds like she wanted him to.

"And you're making pancakes," she rushes on.

She tries to fix it. To tell him that she didn't want him to be gone. That smoothed out sheets and an empty bed is not what she wanted at all. That she's not sorry it happened and she wasn't relieved.

She tries to find the words, but all she has is that. _You're making pancakes._ A statement of the bloody obvious.

It seems to work anyway. There's a single beat and he responds. "I was hoping for bacon and eggs, but your eggs were expired and your bacon has something furry on it."

She says something. Not much, but she doesn't have to.

He rushes on, too. He chatters while she takes in the scene. Batter heaped high in a bowl and the tiny coffee cup in his hand. A glass pitcher on the table, and she has no idea where he came up with even the inch or two of orange juice in the bottom.

She almost laughs out loud. She's more than relieved. Her stomach rumbles and she breathes in the scent of coffee and pancakes. She listens to the satisfying hiss of the griddle. She's starving all of a sudden, but she stays put for now.

She watches him.

She loves how at home he looks. The way his hip pulls back just in time to avoid the sharp corner of the counter. The easy gesture of the pancake turner he must have had to hunt for. He must have rummaged around for a lot of things and found others right away. Because he knows her.

He knows her, and he's making himself at home, but he's nervous, too. She hears it in the constant chatter and sees it in the way his glance falls on her, but never comes to rest for long. The way he keeps his distance, and not because he wants to.

He glances toward her. Quick sips of the sight of her. Their eyes meet every now and again, not even an instant at a time, but it's enough to make her worry about the coffee pot. About the pitcher and plates and everything on the table, because it's the nearest flat surface and the only thing between them right now.

She wonders why he's not doing anything about that. She leans against the glass and into the telling ache of her thighs and watches him. He catches her. She lets him and he blushes. He actually blushes.

It's sweet.

She wouldn't have expected it. Swagger and a smug smile. _I told you so_ in every line of his body. That's what she would have expected, but he's nervous. He's tentative and shy and not letting her get a word in edgewise.

It's sweet and more than a little exasperating. Nerves are only part of it. Part of it is just _him._ She sees suddenly down the future. She knows this is nerves, but it's how he is, too. It's how he'll be. How life with him will be.

_Life with him._

The thought won't budge. It curls her fingers tighter around the doorframe.

He doesn't notice. He's caught up in his own nerves. He steamrolls over her. Calls her out on all the things she doesn't have time for and tries to fix them. He tries to take care of her and this and everything _now._ Right now, in case she makes him go. In case this is as close as he gets. In case she goes back on her promise.

_Not never._

She wants to reassure him _._ She wants to go to him. To step up behind him and let her fingertips find skin. It seems easier. To let her body drift toward his like it did last night. Just a few hours ago. It seems easier to _show_ him because she can't seem to say it.

She thinks about flat surfaces and acceptable casualties. That he'd buy her a way better coffee pot if they sent this one sailing to the floor right now. She thinks about showing him. But somehow she just keeps standing there with her fingers curled around the doorframe.

She makes herself let go. She tries to jump into the conversation. To tell him or show him or _something._ To make him understand that she doesn't want him to go. That he's ridiculous and exasperating and sweet and she doesn't want him to go.

She moves to the table. The coffee pot is in her hand. She's pouring for them both. Filling the clean cup that he set out for her and topping off the swallow left in his. It's something to do. Something to say, maybe.

She could tease him. She could set the dainty cup in his broad palm and point out that it's a from a set for company she never has.

She could tell him the story. How they were a wedding present to her parents. She could tell him how she saved seven of them one night when her dad was drinking. How she jumbled them into a box and walked out without a word. How there used to be eight—a full set—but she broke one before she got to the corner and cried all the way home on the subway.

She wants to say something that will make him believe that she means it.

_Not never._

But she doesn't. She pours coffee into two dainty cups. She gets closer than either of them has dared so far.

He looks up at her. He's saying something about coffee, but he breaks off, wary and surprised to find her so close.

Their eyes meet and she thinks that's it for the coffee pot. That's it for the plates and the pitcher and the artfully arranged fruit bowl. He's not keeping his distance because he wants to and she can't remember why she is.

Their eyes meet and her breath catches and she ruins it.

"Wow. Looks like you thought of everything."

It's awful. It's cross and cold and it sends him running for something else. Another thing to fetch and fix and take care of. She hates the sight of him in the doorway. She hates that his back to her, even though he's just going for the paper.

It's awful already, and then it's worse.

He opens the door and a body tumbles in.

  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That's all this is. A gesture. More for him than for her in the making of it." An episode insert for Tick, Tick, Tick (2 x 17). AUish from there.

_One is one and all alone_

_And evermore shall be so._

\- Green Grow the Rushes (Traditional)

* * *

He surprises her. How carefully he steps around the body. How serious he is, even when she hears him laugh. She hears it from nearer the door than she is now. A dark, broken-off chuckle. Gallows humor, because it's Ryan on the other end. Or Esposito.

He takes that up on his own. Without asking or being asked, as soon as he she dials her own phone and barks Montgomery's name into it. He takes care of bringing the boys up to speed.

"She is. She's ok," he says in a low voice he seems to think she can't hear.

He ends the call and looks back over to her. From the body on the ground and back up to her and his shoulders rise and fall. A stiff, small catch of anxious breath she thinks she might not have noticed yesterday. She might not have noticed twelve hours ago, though she knows it was there. She knows it's been there a while.

But he looks up at her and it's gone. Whatever complicated thing just took hold for a moment, he's managed to swallow it down. His hands are steady, if a little white around the knuckles. He looks up at her and there's nothing on his face but a silent _What next?_

She holds up a finger. He nods. He studies the body again, and she wonders what he's filing away. What he's noticing that she's already noticed, too, but not in quite the same way.

There's no time for it now. For one of those conversations where she pins down details and he takes some leap of logic and things come together. One of those conversations where they had nothing a minute ago and somehow—together—they're not quite nowhere any more.

There's no time for a lot of things she wants, and she has to push it away. That knot of tension and the flutter of anticipation winding around it. Satisfaction and longing, none of it new.

But she has to push it away for now. There's no time.

The call to the Captain is brief and brutal. She gets an earful about dismissing the security detail. A curt, savage declaration that he's glad she's ok before he slams the phone down hard enough on his end that she knows Castle hears it.

"Bad?"

It's all he says, and that surprises her, too. She remembers the incredulous look from last night. Exasperation and uncharacteristic silence. Genuine worry. Fear.

She expects an I told you so. She expects at least that, or him hovering. Trying to fix the fact that there's a body spilling across her doormat and into her front hall. But he doesn't go on. He's quiet.

"Bad," she admits. "Ryan and Esposito?"

"On their way."

She nods. A thank you he seems to understand. "I should call Agent Shaw."

"You don't think she's already on her way, too?" He gives her a grim smile.

"I'm sure she is." She sighs. "Should still call. Give her a head start on reading me the riot act."

She's not quite finished dialing when there's a loud thump from the apartment below. Castle startles badly enough that he stumbles. He knocks into the end table on his way to her. One hand closes around her biceps as he crowds her back, further into the room. Away from the door and the body.

She steps back from him. Her chin jerks up, and she's about to ask him what he thinks he's doing, but his cheeks are colorless, and she can see the pulse pounding hard in his throat.

"Just the downstairs neighbors," she says gently as she slips her arm free from the biting hold he doesn't seem to realize he has on her arm. She snags his hand as he startles again and pulls away.

He starts to apologize, but she cuts him off. She squeezes his fingers briefly in her own and feels how they shake.

She wants to tell him it's ok. She starts to, then almost laughs. There's a body on her doormat, special delivery from her own personal psycho. And no doubt, there's the next installment of a secret message inside. Any minute now, her apartment will be crawling with Feds. There's no time for them, and it's really not ok.

"Kate."

He says her name in a new way. Quiet, low, and intimate. She has the faint memory of his lips on her forehead. Just barely breaking the surface of sleep and knowing where she was and why. Knowing it was him and not being surprised at all. Not sorry.

Her breath hitches and their fingers tangle tighter together. Their eyes meet. There's a breath and a half. That's all they get before he says her name again, and it's anxious this time. Before he's clutching at her fingers hard enough to hurt.

"Kate. Your neighbors." He looks toward the body. There's another thump from downstairs, as if on cue.

"Neighbors." She curses under her breath. She looks down at the phone in her free hand.

He follows her gaze. He runs a quick, regretful thumb over her palm before releasing it. "Your super lives in the building?"

They move away from each other. Just half a step each, but it stings. She wishes there was time. Even just a little. But there isn't.

"Downstairs. One apartment over and across. 104." She chews her lip thoughtfully. "People use the freight elevator sometimes, too . . ."

"So we have him take both out of service. And close off the stairwell doors on this floor at either end of the building," he says. "Any others?"

"That should do it." She shakes her head, but her teeth come together the next second. "Except for everyone on this floor. Four other units. I'll have to go door-to-door. Tell them to stay inside until we've got uniforms to control the perimeter. People will be heading out to work, starting their day . . ."

"No." She opens her mouth to argue, but he says it again, flat and immediate. "No, Kate."

"Castle, it's a crime scene . . ." She moves for the door, but he steps in front of her.

"He was _here._ " His voices rises. It's frantic. Just barely this side of dangerous. "He walked right up to that door and left a _body._ "

"Left, Castle. He _left._ " She keeps her own voice level.

It's not easy. She wants to snap. To dismiss him and pull rank, but she can't forget the way he kissed her and told her not laugh. How indignant he was and the way she believed him when he said it. The way it sounded true.

_It's such a stupid reason for you to be alone._

She keeps her voice level.

"Castle." She looks him in the eye and lets him see she's not worried. She's not worried about this at all. "He sent his message and took off. And this crime scene is our best shot at catching him."

"And what if he didn't?" He runs a hand through his hair. His voice kicks up another notch. Volume and pitch. "What if he knows exactly what you'll do and he's waiting?"

"Then he has a hostage . . ."

"Or another body," he shoots back. He blinks at her like he's just catching up with his own mouth. "That's not . . . very comforting, is it?"

He slumps. The urgency dies in him, and it breaks the tension. It's awful, and he looks appalled with himself, but it's normal. Familiar for them, and she feels air settle all the way into her lungs for the first time since he opened the door.

"Not very."

She doesn't smile. She's not quite up to it, but he hears it underneath. It breaks the tension for him, too.

"Kate, let me . . ." He reaches out. Touches her shoulder, just briefly. His hands are still shaking, but it's not as bad. "Wait for me. Or . . . Or I'll just call the super and I can go myself . . ." He trails off. "Please."

"You can go yourself." She folds her arms, but they both know she's giving in. It's that insane logic of his, and she's giving in. "And if he is here? If he has a hostage or another body?"

He smiles then. He's up to it, because he knows he's won. They both know he's won. He smiles for both of them. "Then I get to do something manly."

"Like what?" She's smiling now. It pulls at the corners of her mouth and hurts her cheeks, because she's really not up to it, but she's smiling anyway.

"Haven't decided yet." He steps away from her to find the house phone. He runs his finger down the list of numbers taped to the wall next to the base, because he notices that. Of course he notices that. He finds the super's number and punches it in. Turns back to her as he lifts the handset to his ear. "Fortunately, I have you for a role model. And Esposito, I guess."

She sticks her tongue out at him and dials Jordan Shaw.

* * *

She's still on hold when he gets back from making the rounds. On hold again. Shaw comes back every once in a while. She barks things in two-second increments. Kate's trying not to take it as a power play.

She lifts her eyebrows at Castle. He gives her the thumbs up and sets the handset of her house phone back in the cradle.

He stalks the floor restlessly. He's looking at the body. Crouching to peer at the paper underneath. He cranes his neck around the doorframe, then back at her, anxious to start breaking things down.

She is, too. She shifts impatiently on her feet, and Shaw's voice finally buzzes down the line again. Clipped, loud syllables and the call ends.

He looks at her like he doesn't even need to ask if it was bad. How bad it was.

"That was quick." She taps her phone against her thigh nervously. "Everything go . . . ok?"

"Fine," he says absently. Flashes her a smile on second thought. "Everybody's staying put. Worked the Castle charm. "

"On Leonard?" She bites the inside of her lip and raises an eyebrow.

"Especially on Leonard." He sniffs. "As someone recently pointed out, I'm very metrosexual."

She laughs. "And Leonard . . ."

"Not so much, but opposites attract."

He pushes to his feet. They both blink. He's standing over her and neither of them seems to have realized how close they are.

There's a body on the floor and it shouldn't matter. There's no time and it shouldn't matter how close he's standing or how he's looking at her.

"Castle . . ."

He looks down at her expectantly. Hopefully. She suddenly doesn't know what to say.

That's not true. She knows what to say. She doesn't know how. But she wants to thank him. To tell him that he surprised her. That he's been surprising her all morning.

 _All night,_ something dark and eager inside reminds her and she blushes. All night.

She wants to tell him that she's grateful for his steadiness. The way he's notices and takes care of things.

She wants to apologize. To tell him she know she shouldn't be surprised. After all this time—more than a year—it shouldn't surprise her that it's like this with them.

But there's no time, and she doesn't know how anyway.

She sways toward him. The blush is still on her and he notices. Of course he notices, and the heat of it draws them together.

Sirens climb the outside walls of the building and bleed through the glass.

There's no time. There's really no time, but she raises up and kisses him once.

"Kate." His eyes close and it sounds like her name might be the thing that breaks him.

Her fingers find his. She drops back on her heels and holds tight. She says his name again and waits for him to look at her. She hears the elevator car rolling up in the distance and feet in the stairwell. There's no time, but she holds tight and waits for him to look at her.

"Castle. You ready for this?"

 _This._ She doesn't know exactly what she means. She doesn't need to. They know together somehow. _This._

It's the pull of their joined hands and a gesture at the body on the floor. It's an ear cocked toward the voices gathering in the hall and the thought of all the space they need to put between them just now. It's everything there's no time for.

"No," he says. He grins and kisses her quickly. He tugs reluctant fingers from hers. "Not even close."

She grins back. Brushes past him to step through the doorway. To meet the rush of everything coming down the hall right now.

"Me neither." She whispers. "Here we go."

  



End file.
